Artisanal Cooked & Smoked Collar of Pork Royale

Description

In Poland this is baleron, and it is spoken of as the king of the cold cuts. The reason is the cut. Collar — the muscle running up from the shoulder into the neck — is threaded with fine seams of fat in a way that loin simply is not. Cure it, smoke it and poach it, and those seams melt into the meat instead of rendering out, so it eats silky and rich where a lean loin eats clean and firm. Made for the Gold Seal range by our master butchers at Jovan Foods in Mitcham.

How it is made

1. The cut. A whole pork collar, trimmed but left as one piece. We are not chasing lean here — the marbling is the point.
2. The cure. Salt and curing salt, with a proper Polish spice cure worked around it: coriander, allspice, clove, juniper, black pepper, garlic and bay. Left under refrigeration until the cure has reached the middle and the colour has turned.
3. Netting. Drawn into a butcher’s net, which compacts the collar into an even, ridged cylinder and holds the seams together through cooking.
4. Smoking. Hung to dry until the surface is tacky, then smoked over wood until the outside colours deep mahogany.
5. Poaching. Finished gently in water rather than a hot oven. Slow and low is what keeps a marbled joint succulent; hard heat drives the fat out and leaves the meat stringy.
6. Chilling. Cooled straight down and held at or below 5°C.

Baleron against the alternatives

If you know German charcuterie, this is the same idea as Nackenschinken. If you know Italian, it comes from the same part of the pig as coppa — but coppa is air-dried and raw, where baleron is cured, smoked and cooked, so it is softer, sweeter and ready to eat as it is. Against our own smoked loin: the loin is the lean, elegant one; the collar is the rich one.

How to eat it

Ready to eat, straight from the fridge. Shave it thin for a board or a rye sandwich with horseradish and pickles; cut it thick and warm it through for a plate; or dice it into eggs, a pierogi filling or a bean stew.

The card

• Ingredients: Pork, salt, preservative (E250).
• Allergens: none of the 14.
• Storage: keep refrigerated, maximum 5°C.
• Format: whole joint around 1.26kg (catch-weight ±10%), or by weight in 1kg, 500g, 250g and 100g — unsliced, sliced or diced to your spec.
• Made by: Jovan Foods Ltd, Mitcham, Surrey (UK MT 015) for the Big Apple Hot Dogs Gold Seal range.